Paper Rainbows Activity {What Makes a Rainbow}

Rainbows seem to be a popular theme in March for St. Patrick's Day, so today the girls and I joined in the fun and made our own paper rainbows.  Our book of the day was What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz, and this little activity was a nice way to wrap up our afternoon session of Homeschool Preschool.  Here's how the girls made these lovely rainbows..

Before I brought out this book, I tried to get the kids to guess what our book was about by giving them clues.  "What do you see in the sky when it's raining and then the sun comes out?"  I thought they'd get it, but I had to ask "What is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet?" and then they guessed correctly (and went into a discussion about how violet, lavender, and lilac are all shades of purple!). 

Originally I was planning on having the girls cut their own strips of paper, but at the last minute I made the executive decision to cut them myself and have the kids place them in order by size.

 

I walked the kids through the steps for the first two colors and they quickly caught on and finished the rest of the gluing without any assistance.  My babies are getting so grown up and independent! 

Both girls were quite pleased with how these turned out and immediately integrated the rainbows into the stories they were playing - earlier in the day they had decorated papers with dog stickers (which immediately became their new pets), and then when we were doing geometry they built dog houses for their pet dogs out of stir sticks, and now they had beautiful rainbows for their dogs to enjoy.  Isn't childhood creativity the best?

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